I'm not here to take the p*ss, it was not many years ago that we were staring into the abyss (just before we dropped into it) and it is not a good feeling. However as you know, it actually did us good and was maybe part responsible for where we are today. I get the feeling that even if you say up this season there is something that is not right in the club and going down and thereby releaving some pressure on a week to week basis may be a good thing for you in the medium term. What do you guys think?
I honestly can't see how relegation to the 3rd division can be good for anyone. We are a decent size club, and we need to be looking up, not down. We have a great potential, and we have the foundations to get to the premiership (i.e ground, facilities, wealthy owner..etc). I think if we can cement our postion in the league in the next few months, then i'm hoping that Mick will clear out some of the deadwood loanees we have, and actually permanently sign some decent players in January, then, come the summer (assuming we are still in this division) Evans needs to seriously back McCarthy in the transfer market if he wants us to be challenging for promotion. No more loanees (well, not more than 1 or two through the season) and a good blend of youth and experience (but ideally not over 30). So, in short.. no, relegation will not be a good idea, it would be disasterous!
The new financial fair play rules mean that you shouldnt be able to simply go out and buy the leagues best which is in rough terms what normally happens. We wouldnt be able to afford to keep most of our current squad which is not a bad thing in itself but would mean more rebuilding. Its probable that most of our team think they are too good for league 2 in any case and we havent got 10 youngsters who can step into the void. Unlike other teams I dont think we would be able to fill the majority of the ground - we are currently down to 16000 average attendance. Relegation would bring that down to probably 12000 which means we would be a big fish but not overly so. We would have decent facilities and a decent ground as a selling point to new players but hardly the lure of playing to full houses every week. This would therefore reduce revenue which would mean we get hit even harder by the ffp regs. In addition there is no certainty that it would work. You & Southampton flourished, some get stuck there for a year or 2, some go down and down again and some go into financial oblivion. There may be a few good points but its a position I would rather we didnt face.
Relegation can never be seen as a good thing in my opinion. Far too much of a risk as has been said before it doesn't work for every club and very little positives can ever be taken from being relegated
I agree with most of what you say but to have attendances of 12,000 in League 1 would be massive compared to the average in that division. We would be without question the biggest club in that league and we would attract most of the better players. Having said that I would not want to contemplate a stay in league 1 and now that we have MM in charge I believe we will do enough to retain our championship status for another season.
I am pleased that the thread has been treated properly and understand the points made, it is a moot point about the benefits. I guess the one thing is that the Carrow Road crowd actually stayed very loyal and the season in League 1 really helped to gel the club as a whole, something that Glenn Roeder had destroyed. It is interesting that you are concerned that your crowds would suffer and if that was to happen then that would make a big difference.
Sky High Ticket prices play a huge part in the dwindling attendances! One of the most bizarre ironies is that a businessman who has built his business and considerable wealth on selling tickets can't get the ticket pricing right at his own football club!
I think we have to accept that we have been moving away from the '20th century' Ipswich Town for a while. We're a very different animal now and it's not comparable with the Norwich situation because they had only been in the Championship for a few seasons, rather than a decade. Ipswich's support would diminish even further unless we were running away with promotion. The only positive is that Sheffield United and Coventry are the only other big clubs down there and neither of them have been for long, everyone else has managed to bounce back eventually.
At the minute relegation would probably seem a disaster to happen but if you look at us, Norwich and Southampton in the long run relegation was a good thing. It allowed us to go down rebuild the whole club and come back up as a stronger club. Its just weather you can afford it finacially but you do need to bounce back pretty quick else you can get stuck down there
I wouldn't want to see some of our recent performances if the tickets had been free! I think if you look at it in basic terms then the higher ticket prices bring in the most revenue per game, because I can't see a 50% drop in prices bring in over 50% more fans. ...of course this excludes the added value of getting more people through the gates creating a better atmosphere which hopefully would cause the players to perform better, and the possible increase in merchandise sales. But I can't see so many more people coming that it would make a difference. I think the reason we have low attendances is because we have been playing boring football, loosing by huge margins, and watching a team made up of other teams players. I think the position we are in at the moment, results are the only thing that can increase attendances. Considering we are already down to the hardcore fans, I can't see attendances drop by a huge amount if we were to get relegated, but I don't think relegation should ever be considered a good thing to aim for...
Good post I guess you are right when you say that we are now down to pretty much the hardcore season ticket holders plus maybe 2,000 'casual' fans. I remember a time in the late 80s early 90s when there were sometimes only 12,000 turning up!
I have to agree, also Hamps made a good point earlier that the situation we are in, being in this league for 10 years is different to a lot of others who had fallen suddenly, to then regain their form. Our fan's have been dwindling due to false dawns and mismanagement of this club in these 10 years. We were given the prospect of a successful club a few years ago which has failed to materialise and so the fans have naturally become disillusioned. If we were to get relegated we would be a different proposition to the likes of Saints, Budgies, Foxes etc. when they were relegated
Agree with the point but it wasnt the one I was trying to make, albeit I could have worded it better. A 30000 seater stadium with only 12000 fans may well be up there with the best filled but its not the packed stadium that would inspire and guarantee players to want to join. Leeds had 30k+ and our feathered fans still packed out the stadium making both great atmospheres to play in. Portman road is never the liveliest of places and thats with 20k fans, take away another 8-10k from that and you can imagine the library it would become. We should still be able to appeal and we all know that money talks so it wouldnt rule out getting the better calibre. I do also worry that the lower leagues cant keep producing gem after gem. Norwich/ Southampton/ Leeds took the best there was over the past few seasons. The likes of Bournemouth, Crawley, Rotherham and MK Dons are now investing to compete. Peterboroughs team is made up of lower league diamonds. We got Drury, Hewitt & Cresswell but for example is there a striker that would guarantee 20 goals still available at that level? The idea of relegation scares the crap out of me and I would rather not give the 'rebuilding' idea a go.
The reverse could also happen in as much as all the 'smaller' clubs in league 1 will of course want to raise their game considerably more against us especially at Portman Road.
See JWM. I knew we would agree on something! just a quick attendance link for this season http://stats.football365.co.uk/dom/ENG/D2/attend.html if we did get down to 12000 upon relegation which I dont think is too unrealistic we wouldnt be too much of a standout option. The link gives full details but as a summary the current 'larger' average attendances are Portsmoth 12500, Shef Utd 17500, Swindon 8000, Preston 9000, MK Dons 8500 & Coventry 10500.
TB I think that the average attendance will hold up better than we both think especially when you consider (and this is sad) that the expectation will be that we will win most or all of our home games! I wouldn't be surprised to see an actual increase in attendances up to something like 18,000 in League 1 but I sincerely hope that we never get to find out!
Not too shabby when you consider all the **** football we have had to endure this season! http://stats.football365.co.uk/dom/ENG/D1/attend.html
good question but it doesnt appear to be that link which is wrong. The offical website for B&HA shows attendances in excess of 26k but the offical amex stadium website shows its capacity as 22.5k. Very strange http://www.seagulls.co.uk/fixtures-results/fixtures-list/ http://www.amexstadium.co.uk/facts
Websites are often slow to show when capacity has been increased - City, for instance, are shown as having an attendance which is 102% of capacity! I'm sure Brighton have increased their capacity this season, and are continuing to do so. Regarding whether relegation would be a good thing for Town, I just don't see it. OK, it worked for us so we can be upbeat about it, but what if we were stuck there? It has to be better to stay up, consolidate, and improve from there doesn't it?
